A7s sample footage

[cyork]

So, the new FCPX update (10.1.2) included LUTs in the inspector now and the SLog2 LUT works pretty well. Much better than the LUT utility app's plugin I've been using along side FilmConvert. Side note for any BMCC users. They included the OLD rec 709 lut rather than the newly released version that fixed the orange red problem.

 

[squig]

Well, that is a very lovely color correction. I wonder what his settings were.

Yeah, so did I, so I replicated them. Here's how it looks on 2 shots-

I just played around with the S-log curve in magic bullet, warmed the highlights, and cooled the shadows a bit

 

[squig]

Squig, any chance you may post some frames of your colour correction/grade so that I may compare your results to mine on my currently uncalibrated monitor? Thanks.

Edit: I see the frame of Stu's posted. I'll use that as a reference. It seems nice and warm. I would like to see others, if you have some of yours to share, Squig? Thanks.

I'm grading with a 99% sRGB gamut calibrated screen. After many wasted hours trying to calibrate manually I finally got myself a spyder. There's the 2 I just posted and if you go back a few pages I posted 2 from the Arizona shoot. I didn't compensate for the magenta tint from the IR pollution in the Arizona shots. I might grade a couple of the street shots if I have some time tomorrow.

 

[mickee13]

I played around in Resolve, and got something half decent, bit less yellow. Takes a fair amount of dicking around to go from that flat image to something resembling a useful image.

 

[squig]

I played around in Resolve, and got something half decent, bit less yellow. Takes a fair amount of dicking around to go from that flat image to something resembling a useful image.

That's a lovely shade of pinkish green :cheesy:

 

[mickee13]

Yeah but I'm drunk right now, just wait til tomorrow.... and I did say resembling

 

[Kholi]

Does anybody else feel that after the camera shipped it has become a little quiet everywhere? I guess people are probably hunkering down in their caves doing tests or out shooting, saving their results and impressions for a huge blogpost or their podcast or whatever.

Sometimes I miss 2008 when Kholi ran out and bought the Nikon D90 and we all sat up all night while he live updated us on everything he tried and discovered, while he was trying it out. The next day the thread had grown by like fifty pages

I totally missed these posts, going back in the thread now to see what the discussion had mounted to.

For the record I still do that! But, it's mostly in BMD world. I actually got a prototype/near-to-finished version of Mosaic's filter and was ready to do the minute by minute replay but ran into some technical stuff. =P

My thought is that the A7S will be crowned best DSLR for filmmakers with a bit of a budget to spare, once people like Roman dig around in the settings... but... (Continued after Squig's taunt =P)

Where is Kholi? I would have thought he'd be all over the A7s. He's become quite the Blackmagic fanboy. I can tell you from experience falling in love with an Australian always ends in tears.

I have become a fanboy of the image I really like, and that's not necessarily BMD. In fact, the last while I was pretty hardcore onto the F35. Would have also probably looked into preordering an A7S BUT... BUT...

In one of the uploads I caught something that threw me off of the camera as far as being the usual bleeding edge buyer. So yeah, not necessarily BMD fanboying, I kinda just picked the flaws that I was willing to deal with like most people have, or should have anyway!

All that... Strancali offered me a week with his A7S and I might take him up on it depending on where Roman ends up with his.

That Digital Bolex is ALSO looking incredibly appealing for its outstanding motion and color rendering. =P

I played around in Resolve, and got something half decent, bit less yellow. Takes a fair amount of dicking around to go from that flat image to something resembling a useful image.

View attachment 88197

hahah Drunk Correcting. New fad. Nah I totally get ya and could tell you're just exploring like everyone else. Nobody's figured it out yet. Keep postin more as you dig.

 

[squig]

Picture profiles test

 

[squig]

Yeah but I'm drunk right now, just wait til tomorrow.... and I did say resembling

Lulz. You're not grading with a glossy Apple screen are you? I tried that on a short when I was at film school and my film ended up looking like ungraded cinestyle. I'd be lying if I said I was drunk at the time.

 

[dfreerider]

I totally missed these posts, going back in the thread now to see what the discussion had mounted to.

For the record I still do that! But, it's mostly in BMD world. I actually got a prototype/near-to-finished version of Mosaic's filter and was ready to do the minute by minute replay but ran into some technical stuff. =P

My thought is that the A7S will be crowned best DSLR for filmmakers with a bit of a budget to spare, once people like Roman dig around in the settings... but... (Continued after Squig's taunt =P)

Yeah, we missed you so it's nice to see you here

 

[squig]

I have become a fanboy of the image I really like, and that's not necessarily BMD. In fact, the last while I was pretty hardcore onto the F35. Would have also probably looked into preordering an A7S BUT... BUT...

In one of the uploads I caught something that threw me off of the camera as far as being the usual bleeding edge buyer. So yeah, not necessarily BMD fanboying, I kinda just picked the flaws that I was willing to deal with like most people have, or should have anyway!

All that... Strancali offered me a week with his A7S and I might take him up on it depending on where Roman ends up with his.

That Digital Bolex is ALSO looking incredibly appealing for its outstanding motion and color rendering. =P

The aliasing turned me off the BMCC and the rolling shutter was circa 5DMKII. If the production camera had that extra stop of DR and an anti aliasing filter I probably would have been into it. The 5D raw was a godsend for me, now it's just a matter of whether the A7s can best it. I don't know about going back to 8bit, the only reason I'm even considering it is the possibility of another stop or two of dynamic range and low noise up to at least 12800 ISO.

I'm with you on the F35, it looks incredible, that thing Hunter shot wandering the streets looked great, unfortunately it's just too big and clunky for me. Almost 6 years now and still waiting for a toy camera that works properly. If someone hacks the A7s and enables raw internal 2k recording it'll blow everything away.

Yeah Digi Bolex looks good too, just a real pain starting a new old lens collection.

 

[Christopher Barry]

I'm grading with a 99% sRGB gamut calibrated screen. After many wasted hours trying to calibrate manually I finally got myself a spyder. There's the 2 I just posted and if you go back a few pages I posted 2 from the Arizona shoot. I didn't compensate for the magenta tint from the IR pollution in the Arizona shots. I might grade a couple of the street shots if I have some time tomorrow.

Thanks for the reply, Squig. Yes, your two Arizona frames back on page 49 of this thread look natural on my uncalibrated screen, being my subjective interpretation of natural. I was thrown by the magenta shade in the sky, however you did qualify that as being IR and no attempt to fix via secondaries which can be problematic with that type of contamination. Your two frames of our 'little human' subject, as now referred to in this thread, those frames appear a little less natural and appear on my screen to have more of a 'look' applied, observed in the skin tones. I am starting to think that our little human subject for skin tones is confusing me, as I am starting to wonder if she rubbed the yellow paint that was on her face and around her mouth, some of it may be on her arms. I see tinges of yellow along little human's arm, together with the general skin tone grade appears to be a warm look, perhaps more so than the late afternoon sun may be providing. Similarly, Stu's frame has a similar warmer look than what I would expect to see if I was perhaps present during the shoot. I only mention this because I am not currently calibrated, and trying to distinguish between viewing a natural reality image versus colour correction coupled with a look applied. Please do not take this discussion as a criticism, I like both corrections/looks that you and Stu have presented for our viewing please, and in the right context, such as a certain theme or type of narrative, they are perfect and add to the story and experience. Alternatively, they are both colour corrected natural, and I am viewing via a monitor that is significantly outside general calibrated range.

I think Kholi may have touched on what I am trying to view, being a colour correction where the image looks natural, as if you were there, present in the environment that it was taken, and I had in mind that F35 look I have seen in a number of the images/videos presented in that monster thread in this forum. One of the most vivid and personally appealing colour videos observed was the Ice-cream footage shot on the Ikonoskop. Sure, the grade had a slight skew towards magenta in the clouds (perhaps IR related or the grade itself), yet it reminded me of Kodak reversal prints I would get back from the lab a few decades ago. I am not even sure if I viewed that video on a properly calibrated monitor at the time, yet I was impressed with that one, like some of the F35 samples I have observed.

So first, when my calibration kit arrives mid week, I will get myself better setup for colour. In the meantime, I will keep watching this space. Thanks, Squig.

 

[Kholi]

Yeah just to touch on that again, I was never going for a look--as Christopher mentions, my intent was to find out what's there as usable data and how rich color could be forced until it becomes unnatural from both underexposed and well exposed frames. So it might be ugly! But, it lets me know that it's pretty good 8-bit on a base level.

im also watching. 720/120 looks interesting and I wouldn't mind a full frame option... Until I can chop my 4K Blackmagic and speedboost it. >=P full frame 4K linear raw

 

[Christopher Barry]

Kholi, I dare you to carefully rip the guts from the BMCC MFT, CNC or dremel the MFT mount porthole to gain a few millimeters diameter for complete sensor coverage of the BM4K S35-ish size sensor, and swap out the BM4K internals? Add SB or those of us with odd vintage glass, adapter and old glass.

 

[vincent thomas]

Really love the colors that came out the Bolex, i hope they will have enough success to ouput a new version of the bolex soon

That Digital Bolex is ALSO looking incredibly appealing for its outstanding motion and color rendering. =P




hahah Drunk Correcting. New fad. Nah I totally get ya and could tell you're just exploring like everyone else. Nobody's figured it out yet. Keep postin more as you dig.

 

[Luke Bacich]

I don't know if this has been confirmed yet. I'm not a video expert like most of you in this thread and have shot most my video to date on a NEX-VG20. I have never loved this camera because of the really bad aliasing. My understanding is that the 16MP APSC in my camera has a lot of line-skipping and pixel binning which leads to this. I'd love to upgrade to the A7s but my fear is that I will be encountering the same issue. When shooting full-frame is there pixel-binning/line-skipping when shooting 1080p to a SD card? My worry is that there's a full sensor read-out for 4K but not 1080p on card. I don't understand this enough but is it possible to have a full sensor read out for two different resolutions (4k and 1080p)? I don't know if I'd ever invest in a shogun so I'm mainly interested in the 1080p performance. I've seen aliasing mentions in this thread but I wasn't sure if that was only for APSC mode shooting.

 

[Samuel H]

My attempt at a very quick grade of our "little human" subject. This took me around 90 seconds. All I did was apply the usual filters that I use on my 5N footage: RGB curve (a lot stronger for a7s than for 5N, of course), fast color corrector (for adjusting WB), and MB Mojo.



I'm pretty happy with the result. Of course, my grading skills can be compared to those of Stu, and if that's not enough I also made a point of trying a really fast grade.

Looking at all these DPX files, the DR is definitely there. Can't wait to get my camera.

 

[philiplipetz]

I don't know if this has been confirmed yet. I'm not a video expert like most of you in this thread and have shot most my video to date on a NEX-VG20. I have never loved this camera because of the really bad aliasing. My understanding is that the 16MP APSC in my camera has a lot of line-skipping and pixel binning which leads to this. I'd love to upgrade to the A7s but my fear is that I will be encountering the same issue. When shooting full-frame is there pixel-binning/line-skipping when shooting 1080p to a SD card? My worry is that there's a full sensor read-out for 4K but not 1080p on card. I don't understand this enough but is it possible to have a full sensor read out for two different resolutions (4k and 1080p)? I don't know if I'd ever invest in a shogun so I'm mainly interested in the 1080p performance. I've seen aliasing mentions in this thread but I wasn't sure if that was only for APSC mode shooting.

you'll be fine, don't worry

 

[wallrc]

I don't know if this has been confirmed yet. I'm not a video expert like most of you in this thread and have shot most my video to date on a NEX-VG20. I have never loved this camera because of the really bad aliasing. My understanding is that the 16MP APSC in my camera has a lot of line-skipping and pixel binning which leads to this. I'd love to upgrade to the A7s but my fear is that I will be encountering the same issue. When shooting full-frame is there pixel-binning/line-skipping when shooting 1080p to a SD card? My worry is that there's a full sensor read-out for 4K but not 1080p on card. I don't understand this enough but is it possible to have a full sensor read out for two different resolutions (4k and 1080p)? I don't know if I'd ever invest in a shogun so I'm mainly interested in the 1080p performance. I've seen aliasing mentions in this thread but I wasn't sure if that was only for APSC mode shooting.

Besides the lowlight, it's the entire point of this camera. Nobody here would be interested in it if it was just a really sensitive camera. The sensor was specifically designed to do exactly what you're describing (no line skipping or interpolation). Essentially it is the first full frame sensor in the world that was designed to be "perfect" for video. There seem to be some issues related to the bits and bobs that interact with the sensor, specifically rolling shutter, but that is not the fault of the sensor itself (or rather, is a by-product of the size of the sensor coupled with the processor).

 

[Luke Bacich]

Besides the lowlight, it's the entire point of this camera. Nobody here would be interested in it if it was just a really sensitive camera. The sensor was specifically designed to do exactly what you're describing (no line skipping or interpolation). Essentially it is the first full frame sensor in the world that was designed to be "perfect" for video. There seem to be some issues related to the bits and bobs that interact with the sensor, specifically rolling shutter, but that is not the fault of the sensor itself (or rather, is a by-product of the size of the sensor coupled with the processor).

Awesome. This is what I was hoping. I just wasn't sure if it only achieved this when outputting 4K. I thought the 1080p might have some line skipping etc as something must be getting dumped compared to the 4k full read out. But as I said, I have very limited knowledge on this.